1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of spacecraft and more particularly the systems used to dissipate heat produced by certain components (or equipment units) on board such craft.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The person skilled in the art is well aware that certain spacecraft comprise components such as traveling wave tubes for amplifying signals to be transmitted. Traveling wave tubes produce a large amount of heat which must be dissipated into space. To this end, a first proposal was to use heat transfer systems such as heat pipes or tubes for circulating a heat exchange fluid to couple the bodies of the traveling wave tubes thermally to a radiating panel for radiating the heat into space.
This proving insufficient, it was then proposed, in particular in U.S. Pat. No. 5,862,462, to couple the body of each traveling wave tube to a collector provided with a high-temperature radiator for radiating heat into space. The radiators being independent of each other, the tubes are virtually independent of each other from a radiating point of view, which is not beneficial in terms of dissipation, environment and mode of operation. This mode of thermal dissipation dissipates into space approximately 50% of the power produced in the saturation mode.
This is unsatisfactory given the ever increasing power that must be dissipated, which generally goes hand in hand with increasing complexity of the arrangements, especially on the east-west faces of the spacecraft (presence of large antenna reflectors and their support mechanism (hold on release mechanisms—HRMs), large send/receive sources and associated radiators, thruster supports, adjacent collectors, etc.), which significantly reduces the efficiency of radiation into space.
In other words, because of the insufficient dissipation of heat, and given the technological limitations of its traveling wave tubes, each spacecraft must be specifically configured and/or have the RF power of its payload limited.
Moreover, the dissipation mode described hereinabove imposes a dedicated environment for each traveling wave tube when testing the onboard equipment units.
An object of the invention is therefore to improve on the above situation.